September is Better Breakfast Month, and today I’m teaming up with Vital Farms to talk about one of my favorite breakfast foods: eggs!

I didn’t discover how much I loved eggs until I moved into my first apartment in college and had to figure out cooking for myself. I started with a simple fried egg, which I added to noodle soup I doctored up with frozen veggies. Primitive at best, but I was learning.

Then I learned how to make poached eggs in my food science lab my year of nutrition school, and I found my new favorite. I made them the traditional way for a few years, until one cold winter day, right around when I was starting my dietetic internship and insanely busy and exhausted, when I came home and found a note on my door. Due to a gas leak and repair, my building’s tenants would not be able to use our stoves for two weeks. Two weeks!

I immediately started googling kitchen shortcuts to find out just how much I could use my microwave for. No way was I going to blow all my money on takeout.

Poached eggs was one of the experiments I was most enthusiastic to try. I’m a big fan of kitchen shortcuts, and this has become an everyday go-to. Whenever I post a recipe with poached eggs in it, nine times out of ten I’ve prepared them this way.

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• 2-3 ounces water

Directions:

1. Crack egg into a ramekin.
2. Add vinegar and water. Stir vigorously.
3. Place ramekin in microwave. Microwave on 80-percent power for 30 seconds. Check egg and then microwave an additional 30 seconds on 80-percent.
4. If egg white is set, remove egg with a spoon. If it needs more time, microwave in 5-second intervals until set.

Do you have any favorite kitchen shortcuts? 

Disclaimer: Vital Farms provided me with a free sample of their pasture-raised eggs. Recipe and opinions are my own.